Any day of the week at lunchtime you might see vaguely familiar, soberly dressed men slipping in through a doorway on Werburgh Street next door to Burdocks fish and chip shop. Here comes Ray Burke on a break from the tribunal, there's Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne, and, not far behind him, a well-known barrister and a couple of high-ranking planners from the Civic Offices.
There's a wide doorway with a notice telling you that only customers are allowed to use the toilet facilities. Straight ahead is a dimly-lit staircase. It's not terribly inviting and many a timid person might be put off, which is a shame because upstairs is a gem of a restaurant, The Lord Edward.
The Lord Edward has been there for decades and sitting down at one of its slightly rickety tables is as comfortable and reassuring as putting on an old cardigan. It's not so much a dining room as a slightly fusty sitting room with tables and chairs in it, a couple of coal black fireplaces, and a dusty pink decor with views of Dublin on the wall. The name is taken from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the 18th century revolutionary whose remains are buried across the street in St Werburgh's Church, and a copy of Stella Tillyard's biography of him is propped up on a shelf in the restaurant. St Werburgh's is closed most of the time but if you go around the corner to Castle Street and knock on the door of number 8, the caretaker might take you around.
Having recently watched Sir Edward die a horrible death in Aristocrats, off we went to lunch in the restaurant, taking an American friend and her partner with us. We thought they would like it because it's one of the oldest restaurants in the city, and there's a superb view of Christchurch through the diamond-paned windows. And also because the service is friendly and guaranteed Irish, but more of that anon. The dining room is up two flights of stairs, past the ground floor bar - a gloomy place with walls covered in dark green tiles - and past the lounge on the first floor. On the next landing you come to a bad portrait of Lord Edward and, around the corner, a doorway to the restaurant. At this stage there's still time to turn back without being seen and for God's sake don't go on if you are looking for smart surroundings, Med Cal food and tall-stemmed wine glasses.
It's a seafood restaurant, and the menu probably hasn't changed for donkeys years. What you get is good fresh fish, served in many different ways but mostly with a blanket of sauce and a dash of alcohol a la Newberg, Thermidor or Veronique. These are the kind of dishes that were absolutely the thing to serve at dinner parties in the 1960s, an era that probably seems like yesterday to most of the clientele. This might be very fuddy-duddy and dull if it weren't for the waiters - Tommy, Paul and Tommy - who are real professionals. It is the kind of place where regulars have their favourite table and are ushered there with a "nice to see you Mr So-And-So" and where, the second time you go, they'll remember that you like a pint Guinness with your half-dozen oysters or that you're on the Nutron diet and can only have dead plain sole and spinach without a screed of butter. They are friendly, charming and efficient and that's worth a lot these days.
The wine list isn't hectically exciting, the full bar licence means you can stick to beer or neat gin throughout the meal, as several customers seem to do. The three waiters preside behind a tiny, immaculately-kept bar where the food arrives via a dumb waiter. Whether the chef is toiling away in the basement or on the top floor none of us knows, and he or she never appears to work the room.
Behind the bar is a framed set of newspaper clippings about Tommy, who's one of the world's fastest and best oyster openers. He carried away the top prize at last year's Galway oyster festival.
Lunch is best here. The menu is simple, there is a great air of affairs of the nation being discussed, and you can sit on all afternoon, in fact well into the evening, as barristers often do when they've had a trying morning in court. Once you have a table, you keep it for the day. Those that do stay on and on will even be served with chowder and brown bread at a late stage, to keep them from falling off their chairs with alcohol.
We had booked one of the window tables, which are best - they're ideal for six, but a bit large for four. The windows are sealed shut even on the warmest days although a good breeze comes in through a sash window nearby.
Lunch is good value with a three course meal offered at the price of your main course. So if you choose turbot at £13.95 you can have a choice of seven starters, dessert and coffee. The most expensive dish is lobster, and it's priced differently every day depending on supply. Lobsters don't excite Americans, especially our friend who has recently arrived from Martha's Vineyard where lobster lunches cost about $5, but at a previous visit, another friend tried the Lord Edward lobster and said it was the best she had ever tasted.
We started with a couple of avocados with prawns and crab, a smoked salmon pate, and seafood cocktails. All, bar the pate, were dripping with sauce Marie Rose, that delicious blend of mayonnaise and tomato ketchup.
The prawns were big and plump and there was plenty of fresh crab with shards of shell here and there, all sitting in ripe avodado halves. The pate was described as good, grand but a bit unexciting, and to scoop it up there was a basket of brown bread and melba toast. I followed with grilled salmon.
Prawns Thermidor arrived under the obligatory smothering of creamy sauce, but were lapped up enthusiastically, as were the scallops St Jacques, in a similar sauce, but given a good grilling on top. You can have meat here, but at lunchtime it is limited to a simple entrecote steak. This arrived perfectly grilled and with a side order of thin crispy chips. On the dinner menu there's another meaty classic - veal Holstein. This must be the only restaurant where this is still served with a fried egg sitting on top.
All the main courses come with an annoying little plate of vegetables that include a precooked and reheated rosette of mashed potato. You also get a few freshly cooked new potatoes - the small waxy kind that have no taste whatsoever.
For dessert we had fresh strawberries and vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce definitely came from a bottle and barely tasted of chocolate. Coffee was freshly made and the pot came around again and again. We had a so-so Chablis that was too expensive at around £23. The wine list is safe and a bit dull, and several of "regulars" seemed to be having pints all the way.
The bill for four, including pre-dinner drinks, two bottles of chablis and coffees all round, came to £156, without service.
The Lord Edward Restaurant, 23 Christchurch Place, Dublin 8 (01-4542420)
